the truth about happily ever after, part 2

November 2082 (part 2 of 2) - Berjes and Hailey Monif are 37, Hazel is 13. (Mariah Buchanan is 24, Dakota Deppiesse is 12, Jodie Larson is 27.) Last update, December 2081. (part one here.)

Her mother leaves early in the morning for work, and Berjes knows this, which is why he comes to visit Hazel before school. She runs down the stairs to greet him, like she used to when she was little, and like she's been doing ever since he and Hailey started arguing. She was always her mother's little baby, but in recent months it's painfully obvious that she misses her daddy.

She says, "Have you still not figured that thing out yet?"

"Nope, not yet," he says.

"Guess what?" Hazel says, not waiting for him to guess. "I went on a date."

"You did what? So this is what your mother lets you do?"

"She was there, don't worry," Hazel says. This small allowance does not make him feel any better about his little baby out with a teenage boy. He raises an eyebrow as she points to the doorstep. "Look, he left me a rose. Isn't that sweet?"

"Boys your age are never sweet," Berjes says. "That's why you're not allowed to date them."

But Hailey comes home early that morning. She's got a different job, a small step up, she'll be able to send Hazel off to school in the mornings after all. Berjes can feel her eyes burning through the back of his head, but she says, friendly enough, "Good morning, Berjes."

"I'm allowed to see my daughter," he says.

"All I said was good morning," she says. She hugs Hazel and says, "Why don't you go get ready for school, sweetie."

"So I'll be here in the mornings then," she says. "But you could stop by after school if you want. She'll be alone for two hours in the afternoon. I don't like to leave her alone after school."

"I work in the afternoons," he says. "I'm all the way out in the city."

"Well..." she says. "How are you then? You don't look good."

He disregards the comment - he thinks he looks fine, considering the circumstances. "So, what is this? You're letting her date? We didn't agree that she could date, maybe she should come live with me!"

"You have no clue, Berjes. I'd hardly call it dating." Hailey leaves out the part about the tonsil hockey - that was a bit much for anybody's standards, she'd have to admit. "They all just hang out together," she says. "It's fine."

In the background, Hazel never made it to her bedroom to get ready for school, and has instead stopped their paper boy. "So I belong to this club," she says. "I've never been there before, but it might be cool. Do you think you'd want to go with me some time? My mom can drive us!"

***

Berjes has been exiled to the newly rebuilt City Park building, right next to city park, of course. They fixed the ground sinking problem and assured him the ground was good and sturdy now. It will suit his needs just fine, as it was built with urban professionals in mind. It's two blocks from the hospital and Berjes can even walk to work if he wants.

There isn't as much to the bachelors' life as he had expected. Maybe it's something he'll grow into. All the freedom he used to crave in his married life just ends up feeling boring. Does he miss Hailey, or does he just miss the convenience of her, a beautiful woman to come home to, to raise his child, to feed and care for him? Could she really have just been anyone?


But he'll get used to it maybe. He'll ease into it, he hopes, as it seems that's what he's headed towards.

His good friends are here in the city. Blake lives just around the corner, and Sheldon is just down the street in the south end.

Sheldon is a strange combination of angry and enthralled for his friend, as Berjes is edging on divorce himself. Misery loves company maybe? Sheldon says, "Hey, I like the place, it's simple, macho."

"That's why they call it a bachelor pad," Berjes says.

He writes a medical blog that he enjoys checking up on. It gives him a chance to show off his expertise, answering people's scandalous medical questions about the disorders they can't bring themselves to say out loud: strange skin fungus, halitosis, or erectile dysfunction.

It's not just about showing off his medical knowledge, but also knowing that at least he has none of these problems.

He has a room here for Hazel, if or when it comes to that, and she'll even have a gorgeous view of City Park. He's offered to take her shopping to decorate it better. He didn't know what she would like, and he figures the bold striped sheets and black walls don't suit her tastes. But she hasn't been here to stay for more than dinner yet. So he keeps his medical training station in there - he'll find a different place for it if she ever changes her mind.

Ironically, the separation only gives him more time to focus on his work. He even earns himself a very prestigious honor, top cosmetic surgeon in Lake County. He might even fool himself into believing he's on top of the world right now, except that he knows he's not.

***

They arrange a date finally, three months into their separation, to see where they stand after some time apart. The evening is simple and they just spend some time walking around the city. They consider skating a little at City Park, but decide against it. They're barely friends, and haven't been lovers for many months. They couldn't bear to be silly around each other.

They're civil enough, they talk about Hazel mostly, and how they'd like to set her up with some music lessons, or maybe a team sport. They want her to be more involved. Hailey talks about her writing a little, mostly about how she's not writing. And that's when Berjes mentions his promotion.

"It figures," she says. "That's why you've been so absent. I thought we might have done this earlier. I should have known." She doesn't mean to lecture him. It's second nature at this point.

"If you wanted to do this earlier, why didn't you ask?"

"I didn't want to have to," she says. "I wanted it to come from you. I mean, three months! Really? Three months and you never thought about me?"

"I did," he says.

"Three months, and the only time we talked was when you came to see Hazel."


He doesn't know what to say about this.


She adds, "Well, at least you came to see Hazel."

"I'm sorry," he says. "I wasn't very good at being married. I know that."

"Not very good? That's the understatement of the year!" She's so frustrated she could wring the night out of the sky with her hands. She feels her heart racing and she's done being angry with him. She's done being angry in general, and she's done being disappointed. She stands up. She breathes it off.

He stands too. She's shaking her head at him and she says, "Three months..."

"I thought that was the point," he says. "We were taking time apart. That was the point. We said that was the point."

"You weren't supposed to wait," she says. "The point is, you weren't supposed to be able to wait."

He never got it. Maybe he never will. "What do you actually want from me?" he shouts.

"Do I have to spell it out?" she says. "Do I have to write out the steps for you? I just don't know if you have it in you, Berjes."

***

Mariah is counseling Dakota Deppiesse this fall after some outbursts she's been having in school.

"Hello, Dakota," Mariah starts. "There's no need to be worried, just think of me as one of your friends and we can talk about anything you like. Do you want to start with school? How is school going?"

"Okay," Dakota says. "My grades are good. I'm here because I got in trouble, right?"

"Do you want to talk about that?" Mariah asks.

"I've been getting into fights," Dakota says. "And my mom is mad because I keep beating up our garbage can and now we have roaches. I just figure beating up the garbage can is better than beating up people, because, you know, that's not nice. I didn't mean for us to get roaches. I usually remember to clean it up when I'm done."

"What are you feeling when you get angry like this?"

"I don't know," she says. "Maybe I just feel too different."

Mariah says, "You know everybody feels different when we're young."

"I just had a baby," Mariah starts, but then she remembers she got in trouble for being too personal once. She revises herself. "When people have children," she says. "They love them unconditionally, no matter how different they might seem. I'm sure there's nothing about you that your parents wouldn't love."

"Oh, I know that," Dakota says. "I'm not really different from my own family. Just everybody else. And it makes me mad. I don't want to be different."

"What do you think makes you so different from everyone?" Mariah asks.

"You can't tell anybody this, right?" Dakota says.

"That's right," Mariah says.

"I'm an alien," Dakota says.

"You mean you feel alien?"

"No, I mean, I am one. I'm like, from a different planet. I was born here and everything, but one of my two grandfathers was from another planet."

"I see," Mariah says. She's at a loss for what to say. Is this a delusion? A fantasy? They sure didn't teach this one in school.

"Well, sometimes people might feel like they're from another planet, but it doesn't mean they actually are."

"You don't believe me?" Dakota shouts.

Oh my, Mariah is thinking, this is an angry girl.

"What matters," Mariah says, "Is what you believe. So let's say you are an alien, how does that make you different?"

But Dakota doesn't want to talk about that anymore. She changes the subject. "I know," she says. "Maybe I have an eating disorder?"

"An eating disorder?" Mariah doesn't buy it. "You know," she says. "We have the greatest turkey sandwiches in the cafeteria. Are you hungry?"

"Turkey? With mustard or mayonnaise?"

"Mayonnaise," Mariah says.

"I guess I could eat something," Dakota says.

They sit down to have sandwiches in the cafeteria. Dakota barely touches hers, but she doesn't want to talk about her eating habits anymore. "There's something else," she says.

"Go ahead," Mariah says.

"I'm having really weird thoughts about one of my brother's friends, Tyler Jackson."

"What kind of thoughts?"

"Like I'd like to squeeze his butt mostly, and maybe run my hands up and down his chest too. I'd love to wrap my hands around one of his biceps! I never thought that about anybody before."

"You're becoming a woman," Mariah says. "These kinds of thoughts are perfectly normal, and I can assure you, a lot of women want to get their hands on Tyler Jackson. It's a very common thing."

The hospital is plugging along, as hospitals tend to do. People get sick, people get better. They try not to get sued too often.

Only now does Berjes find himself thinking about Hailey. He wouldn't say he never thought about her, just not to the degree she required. He has so much else on his mind at any given moment. Does anyone really have the time to sit around pining for their loved one?

The thing of it is, he really never did ever cheat on her. That's the truth. He was never even very tempted. Sure, people consider it as a possibility, and people consider the fantasy of it - he did. But he never had any close calls. He never flirted in a way he'd wished it had gone further.

They were married right out of college, how were they supposed to know it wouldn't work out? When you're twenty-three and in love, and racing ahead at full-force, jumping brashly into a marriage and family, how do you know you might be bad at it? Naturally, not everyone is good at marriage, as Berjes has found.

He's sorry if he wasted her time, but he wouldn't have spent fourteen years with anyone else, and he loves being a father. From what they knew, they wanted similar things, and they seemed so compatible. How were they supposed to know it would come to this?

He is assured that even if he has lost his mojo, he hasn't completely lost his looks. Still, even in his pathetic state, women throw themselves at his feet. One strange red-head says to him that she'd like to offer him a "free sample of her product." It's been years since he was on the market, and is this how women act these days? He wonders if that means she's a hooker or something?

Even Jodie is acting strange lately - Jodie whom he knows has had a burning and badly-hidden passion for him ever since he hired her. She wanted to speak with him, she said.

"You look great," he tells her. "Are you doing something different?"

"Yeah, tai chi," she says. "You look like crap, you should go."

"Um, okay," he says. "So, let's get to it then. You wanted to talk about something?"

"Hmmm, how to put this," she starts. "I'm running for your job next election."

He's shocked.

"Don't be so shocked," she says. "I think it'll do you good to lose, you can spend more time with your wife."

"Actually, that's not looking so hot," he says.

"Oh," she says. "That's too bad."

"Wait, you think that's too bad?"

Jodie doesn't know how to describe it. She doesn't fall in love, so she knows that certainly wasn't what she felt for him all these years. He was her smoldering-hot boss, she was fresh out of medical school; it was almost predestined that she would have a crush on him. And then after all this time, the moment he actually becomes available, it goes. It almost makes her want to laugh, actually, the timing. Is it his dejected loserish state, or is it something else entirely?

She says, "Yeah, it's too bad. So I guess you won't have anything left when I take your job."

As soon as Jodie leaves, a courier comes into his office. "Berjes Monif?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says.

She slides an envelope across the desk and places a clipboard on top of it. "Sign here," she says.

Berjes doesn't need to open it to know what's inside. Court fees, child support, the end of his life as he knows it. Hailey was a stay-at-home mother for the bulk of their fourteen-year marriage, and he is one of the county's top surgeons - alimony, like nobody's ever seen alimony before!

He takes a deep breath and lets out a long, anguished bellow. The courier steps back with horror on her face. She's seen a lot of reactions, but never this before.

He'll sign for the papers, he kind of has to. He'll sign, and he'll show up in court when he should, he'll pay the fees, he'll take his daughter when it's his turn, and he'll plug along until their story has ended, and when it has, he'll even let her go.

He loved Hailey. He did. He loved her as much as he could, and as much as he'll probably ever love anyone. But she was right, maybe, that he doesn't have it in him to love her as much as she needs. And he wants her to be happy, so maybe it's even better this way. There were a lot of things he couldn't do for her, but this he can do. He can let her go. Because the truth about "happily ever after" is that on her own, she might actually find it.

*****

notes: Berjes started off in aspiration failure this turn, and rolled to mope around, hence his pathetic attitude ;)

The decision to divorce basically boils down to two major factors. If you ever heard "out of sight, out of mind," that's Berjes. He never rolls wants specific to Hailey (or anyone, for that matter) unless they're on a date, and the whole time they were apart, she never even crossed his mind once. In fact, he's feeling strangely robotic even for himself lately. All his wants are generic, and he doesn't even want to flirt (with anyone), and only occasionally rolls a date want. I'm actually kind of sad for him, the way he just kind of stood back and let the marriage go, like he knew he was no good for her...

And then on her part, having 25 dream dates as a LTW, I figure she's not the kind of woman who would stand to hang around in a loveless marriage.

At first, I really wanted things to work out for them, but then, I kind of have to let go of what I want and listen to what they're telling me, which is that it's just not working out. (Otherwise, you get an unrealistic proportion of successful marriages, like I actually have in this 'hood.) After having had some time to grieve the loss of them as a couple, I can see how they don't suit each other. Even with the attraction they have (153 ACR), their life goals turned out to be not very compatible after all.

Someone asked before what the kids' memory said, it's red (I can't imagine the child who would have a green one, lol!), and it says: "I guess that union wasn't all it looked like it was going to be."

The gritty details:

One minor child, Hazel Monif, will remain in the primary care of her mother, Hailey, and will continue her education in the Lakeside Heights school district. Her father, Berjes, will have custody every other weekend and Wednesday evenings. Berjes will pay $200 per week in child support (by week, I mean play session) until Hazel turns nineteen (or twenty-three if she goes to college), as well as $600 per week to Hailey in alimony for the next five years (or until she remarries).

Ouch ;)

These reminders are as much for myself as for you all. I've already slipped up once plotting a storyline for Melissa, forgetting she's supposed to be with her mom in the summers ;)

*** outtakes ***

I've never had anybody get the mysterious illness from the medicine machine. Good thing she was in a hospital when she caught it, lol. I had too much going on to play through it, and cured it right away.

And note, Jodie says she doesn't want to get married, but she's starting to think she might reconsider if the dude had some money, lol! That rules Berjes out, now, but she also needs to get laid, so maybe she'll hit him up for a booty call now that he's available. She got fit with all that tai chi, and now they're bumped up to 160 ACR!

Jodie is crushing on somebody else lately though...

I did the divorce at home this time. I just couldn't be bothered with staging the whole court thing - they still paid all the appropriate parties.

Hazel wonders why her dad has to go and be such a loser?

And sheesh, Hailey! The ink isn't even dry yet on the divorce papers, and already she's got dudes calling for her, lol!

This is Bradley, by the way. She met him at the supermarket earlier in the week. He's a family sim, a cancer, likes classical music, cooking, and long walks along the lakeshore. He wants to know if she's free to go out tonight, and she says, "Right now really isn't good for me, maybe call again tomorrow?"

Hazel says, 'Mom, have you no decency?"

But no, Hailey feels terrible, really, she does, lol!